Summary
Early Game
Graves is a rather strange hybrid between an AD carry and a bruiser, so he doesn't really belong in bot lane or top lane, but he's an exceptional jungler thanks to his kit that allows him to lose almost no health points when he farms in the jungle.
Boots
With his semi carry AD status one might be tempted to take Berserker's Greaves, however, it is strongly advised to take Mercury's Threads or Ninja Tabi in order to amplify the naturally tanky aspect of Graves.
Core Items
- Enchantment: Warrior is the classic on Graves, the attack damage and reduced cooldown provided by the item allows you to get your burst very quickly.
- Black Cleaver is an iconic item for Graves, with a superb balance of offensive and defensive stats, you'll be able to suppress your enemies while surviving their attacks.
- Phantom Dancer once again allows you to drastically increase your damage, while reducing the damage sustained, further improving your dueling potential.
- Death's Dance fill the same role as Phantom Dancer: Improve your dueling potential and your survivability, by transforming some of the damage you suffer into damage over time. It also provides you with excellent regeneration, which occurs on all physical damage you deal (auto-attacks and spells).
Situational Items
- Mercurial Scimitar is a prime choice against champions with lots of controls like Warwick, Malhazar or Skarner.
- Infinity Edge is no longer a must have item to amplify the DPS as it was before, but if you find yourself against a very tanky composition (with 2 to 3 targets with more than 150 armor) Infinity Edge is then a very good option.
- Maw of Malmortius stays in line with the items you've already bought, magical resistance, attack damage and a liability that gives you a magical shield and life steal; perfect for surviving in long teamfights.
- Guardian Angel is, as you probably already know, an object that you will do in almost every game at the end of the game, for its passive that allows you to come back to life and thus stall in team fights.
Playing Graves
In the early game, use your passive New Destiny which repels monsters from the jungle to save a maximum of your health points.
- Level 1: Use Q - End of the Line between two automatic attacks to optimize your DPS as much as possible.
- Level 2: With E - Quickdraw, you can not only get away from the monsters in the jungle, but also reset an automatic attack and retrieve a cartridge. Use E - Gold Rush between two automatic attacks, with priority over Q - End of the Line, the perfect combo being => Automatic Attack (AA) > E > (AA) > Q > (AA).
- First recall: Try to back with more than 1100 gold to buy Skirmisher's Sabre, Boots, a Control Ward and a few Health Potions.
Match-ups
Tips & Tricks
- Use your passive New Destiny to avoid taking damage in the jungle.
- Q - End of the Line comes back directly to its initial point if you throw it against a wall, use this mechanism as soon as possible so that the opponent cannot dodge the second sequence of the spell.
- A well placed W - Smoke Screen, blind and prevents one or more players from following what happens during the teamfight, so it's extremely interesting to force AD carries to back off.
- E - Quickdraw can enable you to jump over a wall, just like R - Collateral Damage, if you place your back against it.
